


Apple Pie and Sunshine

by betheflame, starksnack



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Bucky Barnes Is a Good Bro, M/M, Mpreg, Parent Steve Rogers, Parent Tony Stark, Peter Parker is Tony Stark's Biological Child, Protective Bucky Barnes, These Boys Need Mamas
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-24
Updated: 2020-05-24
Packaged: 2021-03-02 21:15:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,442
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24353470
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/betheflame/pseuds/betheflame, https://archiveofourown.org/users/starksnack/pseuds/starksnack
Summary: Even though they've loved each other for years, Steve and Tony have each convinced themselves that their one-night-stand was a fluke. Thing is, it also resulted in Tony getting pregnant and as the birth approaches, perhaps it's time to use their words.Featuring a guest appearance by BAMF Winnie Barnes, Target coupons, and some Omegaverse worldbuilding - this fic is Flame and Kait's submission to the Cap/IM RBB 2020.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Pepper Potts, Steve Rogers/Tony Stark
Comments: 24
Kudos: 457
Collections: Captain America/Iron Man Reverse Bang 2020





	Apple Pie and Sunshine

**Author's Note:**

> Flame: Just some huge thanks to Marie, Moody, and Melia for cheering/betaing. Marie did a lot of heavy lifting for this one and I'm supremely grateful. Also, I'm so excited to have created a world for this precious, precious art! Thanks, Kait, for creating something so sweet.
> 
> Also, [Shadowolf19](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24354109) also claimed this delight, so make sure to head to that fic as well!

* * *

“Knock it off,” Tony swats at Pepper’s attempt to take the wrench out of his hands. “I’m fine.”

“You are eight months pregnant,” Pepper snapped.

“Those things aren’t mutually exclusive, Pepperoni,” Tony sassed, going back to loosening the stubborn lug nut.

“Man, just give me the wrench.”

Tony ignored Rhodey just as much as he ignored Pepper.

“Steve-”

“Steve is with your boyfriend and has no idea that I’m in the workshop and we’re all going to keep it that way,” Tony addressed Pepper at the invocation of his baby daddy’s name. “There,” he addressed the lug nut, “now you’re off.”

“Sir,” Jarvis interrupted, “your temperature is rising.”

“Mute,” Tony replied testily. I’m not an infant and I don’t need to be managed.

He realized he said that out loud when Rhodey replied, “you are high risk, you fucking idiot, and you know it. Do you want me to read down the list of instructions from Dr. Cho?”

“Honestly, Rhodey,” Tony sighed.

“I’ll take that as a yes since you have obviously misplaced your mind,” Rhodey barrelled through. “You are going to go into premature-”

“It wouldn’t be premature,” Tony interrupted, twisting his body a little bit to leverage more of his weight against the next lug nut he was wrestling off DUM-E’s strut. “Peter’s fully cooked, he’s just making himself at home on my spleen. Can’t tell you how much parenthood is already a blast.” He gave one final jerk and the lug nut came free. “Finally, fuckssake.”

“Tony,” Pepper said calmly, “look at me.”

Tony raised his head to meet her eyes and saw a sheen of tears on them. “Pep, what -”

“Anthony Edward Stark, you worked so hard for that baby, for this life, for all of this,” she gestured around at the workshop. “You and my idiot brother somehow made it work this far and the fact that you’re not taking it seriously is making-”

“Hey,” Tony furrowed his brow and snapped at her. “I’m taking this very seriously. I have eaten every meal you or Mama Hen Rogers has told me to eat, every supplement you told me to take. I’ve been to every doctor’s appointment and followed all the instructions because, so help me God, even if Steve doesn’t want me, I’ll make sure Peter knows he’s always wanted -”

“Why wouldn’t Steve want you?” Pepper asked, bewildered. “My brother has been in love with you for basically ever.”

Tony’s jaw dropped. “What the hell are you talking about? It was a one night stand! He smells neutral whenever we’re together, not like anything... we were drunk, Pep, and Steve -”

It wasn’t Pepper who cut him off that time, though. That time Tony stopped mid-thought because his water broke.

* * *

Steve could tell you the moment he fell in love with Tony. He could tell you what he was wearing, what Tony was wearing, and how he’d nearly stopped breathing because Pepper and Bucky were in the same room. As the oldest of their quartet, Pepper had presented her secondary gender first. Heats for omegas were usually wild for the first several years - unpredictable, sometimes painful, and of a variety of lengths - before hormones settled and most people got into a rhythm. But the moment Steve remembers was Pepper’s second heat and it had been going on for three days already and his sister was miserable.

It was driving Steve bonkers. Pepper was his only family left after their dad left somewhere around Steve’s fourth birthday and their ma died when Steve was twelve. They were lucky the Starks allowed them to keep living there, otherwise he and Pep probably would have gotten split up and sent to foster care homes. Pep was his favorite person, his comrade in arms, his best friend. But there she was, whimpering in the corner of her nest, and he couldn’t do anything.

_She let out a particularly terrible growl and Tony looked at Steve and Bucky. “I got her. You can go.”_

_Steve protested and Tony looked right at him. “Steven, she’s my best friend and I like you a lot, but I swear to God if you don’t get out of here and leave us alone so that I can spare her the indignity of fucking her with a dildo in front of her brother, I will break you.”_

Steve wasn’t sure if it was normal to fall in love with someone when they threaten bodily harm, but he’d never considered himself normal.

He’d pined for years. When he’d presented as an alpha, he started to entertain fantasies of what life would be like if Tony was an omega and what if Tony could be his omega and then Tony turned out to be an omega and it was all too much.

Especially because it was clear that Tony did not feel the same way about Steve. So Steve kept his pining to himself. He masked his scent around Tony, making sure the man wouldn’t smell the love and devotion and commitment except when Steve could trust that Tony would smell it platonically. Bucky rolled his eyes constantly as they got older.

“Asshat, stop wearing the maskers,” Bucky said. They were sitting at a picnic celebrating Tony’s update to something in the StarkPhones that doubled the battery life.

“No,” Steve shook his head. “He doesn’t want an alpha. He’s said that a thousand times.”

“He also says he’s going to live on the moon, Stevie. He just talks, it doesn’t always mean stuff.”

“No, Bucky, you don’t get him,” Steve shook his head. “He talks a lot, but if you look closely, his eyes shift when he’s being honest.”

Bucky looked at him for a long time before taking a bite of potato salad and talking through it. “You ain’t the only one with eyes, pal, or the one who notices things, and I notice that he looks at you a lot when you ain’t looking, and I notice that the alphas he flirts with tend to have blonde hair and a gym obsession, and I’m telling ya to stop wearing the maskers.”

“Don’t talk with your mouth full.”

“Don’t be a chicken shit.”

But Steve kept wearing the patches he bought off the internet, the ones for unbonded alphas who couldn’t always control how they scented the room. Or, as some of the people on the message boards confessed, just couldn’t control their emotions around certain people.

And was still wearing them when one night, eight months and three days ago, they all went out to celebrate Pepper being the first female omega at her law firm to make junior partner. Ten years of want, fueled by too many shots of something called a Dirty Girl Scout, and Tony’s ass in Steve’s favorite jeans and…

And now, the man of his absolute dreams was having his baby.

And said man had no idea of said dreams.

He and Bucky were at Target, picking up some more diapers because Winnie had coupons and Steve needed to get out of his house. He’d promised Tony he wouldn’t hover, but…

“Stevie, your phone,” Bucky said, nodding at Steve’s jeans pocket while loading a large box of Luvs into the cart.

“It’s Pep,” Steve said, sliding to answer. Before he could get a word out, he heard Tony in the background.

_“Labor takes forever, Pep, don’t bother him.”_

“He wants to be bothered, Anthony,” Pepper snapped and then addressed Steve. “His water broke, we’re on the way to St. Vincent’s. Are you still at Target?”

_Peter’s coming. Tony’s water broke. Peter’s coming._

“Steve?”

Bucky extracted the phone from Steve’s hand. “He’s short circuiting, Pep. Everything okay?”

Steve could see Bucky nod out of the corner of his eye.

“Well, that explains his frozen expression of sheer panic. Right, what do you need?”

Bucky grabbed Steve’s arm and started pulling them towards the food section. “Applesauce, some seltzer - lime, right? Got it - and then do you and Rhodey want anything?”

Steve felt like someone else was controlling his body. He could hear Bucky still talking, and knew they were still in Target, but everything in him wanted to break out into a run and just get. to. the. hospital. He needed to be with Tony and he needed to be with Tony now.

He growled at Bucky, who turned slowly and looked at him while still talking to Pepper.

“Pep, baby, Stevie’s going feral, so let me focus on getting him out of here without mauling someone and we’ll see you soon.” He hung up and handed the phone back to Steve. “They want a few things and they’re not even there yet, so breathe, pal.”

“He’s in labor,” Steve emphasized.

“And you being there or being here isn’t going to change anything, is it?”

“They said that having an alpha-”

“They said that having a _bonded_ alpha would help calm a distressed, laboring omega, and unless I missed something and you’ve used your words, then you ain’t that.”

They had a short stand-off in the granola aisle, before Steve grumbled that Bucky was right but that he still wanted to get there as soon as they could.

Because Peter was coming and Tony needed him. Bonding or no, he had to be there.

* * *

“Tony.”

He hoped that when he was a father, he’d be able to pack an entire lecture into one word the way that Winnie Barnes was able to.

“Yes, Winifred?”

She smacked him playfully upside the head and handed him a cup of ice chips. “You’re being a stubborn child.”

“No,” Tony corrected, blowing his floppy curls out of his face, “I’m delivering a stubborn child.”

Winnie looked over at Pepper and Nat, who were sitting on the sofa in the birthing suite. “Can you ladies go get some Starbucks?”

“Tony can’t-” Pepper started.

“I’ll take a grande iced soy caramel macchiato and Tony will take a large cup of ice, honey, thank you,” Winnie grinned as the girls got the message and left the room.

“You didn’t need to kick them out,” Tony said. “I get that I put you down as my support omega, but you don’t need to clear everyone out of here.”

“You’re in pain, so I’ll forgive you for sassing your mama,” Winnie said with an exaggerated Southern accent.

“Woman, you are from Red Hook,” Tony smirked. “Going all Paula Dean on me isn’t going to make me do what you want.”

He grimaced and took a sharp breath as something Peter did made a nerve in his spine jump. Tony had been in several stages of labor since his water broke eight hours previous, but he affectionately referred to all of them as ‘hell’. Labor for omegas was never pleasant, but labor for unbonded omegas was one of the chapters Dante forgot to include in The Inferno.

Winnie moved in an instant and pressed her forehead to his. She scented the room - a floral smell that only other omegas could smell, one that said they were safe and with family and one she’d been making Tony smell since Howard gave him his first black eye when he was four. Not a lot had gone right in Tony Stark’s life, but Maria hiring Winnie to be the head housekeeper at the mansion was absolutely one of them.

“Child of my heart,” Winnie whispered, “just ask him. If you just ask him-”

“No,” Tony whispered back, the word catching over the emotions of what she was saying. “No. If he wanted to be here, he’d be here.”

“He is here,” Winnie replied. “He’s been pacing holes in the floor and only comes in here when someone says you want him here.”

“I told him to go home,” Tony huffed.

“And when has Steven Grant Rogers ever done anything he didn’t want to?”

 _The night he knocked me up,_ Tony mentally replied. “He’d rather be at home anyway.”

Instead of replying, Winnie went over to the small sink and ran a washcloth underneath the cool water. As she wiped down over Tony’s brow, she smiled softly at him. Her words, however, were sharp. “Anthony Edward Stark, you are on my last nerve, boyo, so listen carefully. The only reason that man isn’t in here is because you didn’t ask him to be. You know him. He’s an old fashioned kind of alpha and he is never going to be somewhere his omega asks him not to be. So ask him in here.”

“I’m not his omega,” Tony grumbled.

“And why is that, hmm? Is that because you told him you’ve wanted to bond with him since you knew what bonding was and he said no? Is that because you told him that having a family with him is what you want and he said he didn’t want that? No, it’s not, because I know you haven’t said a word.”

“Winnie,” Tony said, drawing out the name. “It’s too big a risk.”

“I’d posit that nothing is too big a risk for your child, not when it’s just your bravery at stake and the outcome could make life better,” Winnie replied.

“I’m not bonding with him just to make labor easier,” Tony snapped.

“I never said it would only be for that, kiddo,” Winnie replied. “Stop projecting.”

* * *

Hour nineteen brought the pair alone in the room for a while. Bucky and Pepper had headed home to sleep - and if Steve knew Bucky, he’d be using the opportunity to talk to Pepper about bonding and babies because his best friend had gotten downright broody the longer Tony was in labor and no one could ignore the lingering glances he was giving his girlfriend.

Tony was starving, and crabby, and only three centimeters dilated and smelled exhausted.

“Tony,” Steve said quietly, “what do you think Peter is thinking in there?”

Months before, on a night where their whole group of friends was meant to go out to celebrate Nat’s birthday, Tony had been so exhausted that he begged out to collapse in his bed. Steve had offered to come over and make Tony some dinner and the omega had been too tired to argue.

Steve felt like he’d just been given the moon. Being able to take care of an omega, of Tony, was just…

Tony’s hormones were all over the place that night - he’d been snappy and weepy in equal turn, and then frustrated with being both, which made him more snappy or weepy and it had been a long night. Somewhere around 2am, when Tony was awake from heartburn, Steve had sleepily asked him if he’d thought about names.

They’d been dancing around it since the ultrasound told them it was a boy - mostly joking ones like Mortimer or Augustus - but they’d not really talked.

“ _I’ve thought about a lot of them,” Tony confessed. “But nothing sounds good with Rogers.”_

_Steve blinked at him a few times. “Why would his last name be Rogers? I mean, I’m okay with that, but it doesn’t have to be.”_

_Tony was quiet for a moment. “I just assumed, I mean, you’re the alpha and you like traditions…”_

_Steve felt a shot of embarrassment to his gut. Yes, he liked traditions and his friends made fun of him a lot for being old fashioned, but he wasn’t about to deny an omega naming rights just because he was an omega. “Tony, I’d be honored if he had my last name, but I’d be just as honored if he had yours.”_

_“Mine is garbage,” Tony snorted. “It’s not like I got a legacy to pass down.”_

_“And I do? Maybe we should just name him Barnes, let him be Winnie’s grandson.”_

_“He will be anyway,” Tony smiled. “You think that woman is going to keep her hands off our kid, you have another thing coming.”_

_Steve smiled. “I was thinking about Peter. It means ‘stone’ or ‘rock’ or something else solid you can build on. And he’s what I’m going to build the rest of my life on, and it sounds good with Stark.”_

_Tony was quiet long enough that Steve panicked. “You don’t like it?”_

_“No.” Tony’s voice was shaky. “I actually love it, I just hadn’t thought about him that way, the thing I build the rest of my life on, but he is. He’s what we’ll build the rest of our lives on. So, Peter Rogers-Stark?”_

_Just as Tony said it, Peter gave a mighty kick to Tony’s abdomen. “Ooof, I think he likes it.”_

_Steve laughed. “What else do you think he thinks?”_

_“Well, I hope he’s thinking about the Collatz Conjecture because we could really use a solution to it,” Tony replied. Steve laughed and they spent the next bit imagining what Peter was thinking about. It became a small tradition - when it was just the two of them - to talk about what Peter was thinking._

“I think he’s thinking that he’s perfectly cozy and why are we forcing him outside,” Tony grumbled.

“Maybe,” Steve smiled softly. “I think he’s thinking he just wants more time with his papa.”

“Well, I have news for him, he’ll have as much time as he wants once he gets out of his papa. My arms are better than my uterus, I promise, buddy.”

Steve laughed. “Do you want more applesauce? The nurse said it was okay.”

“I’m going to be made of applesauce,” Tony grumbled. “But yes, please.”

Steve went to the fridge to get out the jar of Motts they’d been keeping in there and tried hard not to kiss Tony’s grumbles away instead.

* * *

“They’re talking about an emergency c-section,” Steve said as he took a long sip of his coffee and looked across the waiting room at Bucky and Winnie. “His blood pressure is getting bad.”

“Millions and millions of omegas have c-sections, Steve,” Bucky said calmly. “So what’s with the seriously dilated pupils? There’s no fight to be had around here, so stand down, Alpha.”

Steve growled at the insinuation that he was overreacting. Did they not understand? Tony could die. Two days of labor and the doctors were worried. When doctors get worried, we should be very worried and I can’t… “C- sections are surgery, Buck, and I can’t lose him, not when he’s… I can’t, I just can’t.”

“Who said anything about losing, Tony?” Winnie raised an eyebrow and got up from her chair to sit next to Steve.

“He’s been in labor forever and he’s already high risk so there’s probably complications and-”

Winnie cut him off with a hand pressed to his shoulder. “Tony is strong, chicken. He’s survived more than you probably remember and he’ll survive this, too. His body is struggling to do the thing it’s designed for, but that is why he has good doctors around him and you scenting the room with panic isn’t going to help anyone, least of all Tony or Peter.”

“Peter! Oh my god, I didn’t even think of him, I’m already a terrible-”

“Oh knock it off, Stevie,” Bucky hauled himself from the couch in the opposite corner to crouch right in front of Steve. “This has got to stop. Do you love them?”

“What?”

“Do you love them, Tony and Peter, do you love them?” Bucky enunciated slowly.

“Of course I do.” Steve was offended at the question.

“Then why the fuck are you out here panicking over something that might not happen when you can go back in there, calm Tony, and scent the room for Peter’s arrival into your family.”

“We’re not a family,” Steve croaked out, his throat suddenly tight.

“Oh bullshit,” Winnie scoffed. “You’ve been family with that boy your whole life, and just because you are too much of a coward to agree to mate him doesn’t mean you’re not family.”

“Ma,” Steve said, with a tone of warning in his voice.

“No,” Winnie said. “You need to listen to me. The voice in your head that tells you Tony is only asking because of Peter is Joseph’s voice and we know your dad was a liar. We know that, Steven, just like we know Howard was indifferent and Maria set her son up for failure, and how Bucky should be grateful every day that that woman loves him when she’d do just fine on her own.”

“Hey!”

Winnie smiled at her one son, before continuing to address the other. “You are allowed to want it all, sweetheart. You are allowed to want the happily ever after, I swear.” Her voice dropped to a whisper as she grabbed his face and pulled it towards her. She touched their foreheads together like she always had when the kids were young and Steve was scared. It was an instinctual omega move, a way to communicate safety, and it had always been one of the ways Winnie reminded Steve that she loved him just like she’d done with Tony forever, and just a few hours prior.

“I’ll never be good enough for them,” Steve whispered after a few moments. He’d started crying during the conversation and knew it was because both Winnie and Bucky were touching him. They’d spent a lot of their lives teaching Steve that being an alpha didn’t mean having it all together all the time, and that the point of life was to have a pack and god if he didn’t need that reminder now.

“You already are perfect for them,” Winnie replied. “You are exactly what they need, so go in there and be it. You’ve been masking your scent for him for too long, boyo. If you love him, now is when he needs to know it. Not in a few years when you decide to be brave - right now. Right now while his body is in trauma and he’s overwhelmed with hormones. Our Tony can absolutely do this on his own and unmated, but why should he have to when he has you?”

Steve nodded, wiped his tears, and sighed. “You’re both sure he wants me?”

Bucky snorted inelegantly. “Buddy, if Tony Stark ain’t over the moon for you, I’ll give you my Mickey Mantle rookie card.”

“Buck, that’s your retirement account,” Steve replied.

“Exactly. So get in there and get my godson safely into the world.”

* * *

_Petey pie, if you could just come on out, Papa and Daddy will buy you a million things to make you happy because you are breaking my hips along with my heart right now,_ Tony thought as he lay in the bed, drenched in sweat from the last round of pushing.

Steve had been gone for the better part of an hour, which was not helping Tony’s anxiety or his patience.

The door clicked open a few seconds later and Tony assumed it would be another nurse or another specialist or another clinical someone to help them figure out why his son was being a stubborn asshat like his parents.

“I brought more ice chips.”

Tony turned his head and his entire heart swelled three sizes. Steve was standing there, smelling like confidence and…

Love.

Tony always wondered what Steve would smell like when he loved someone. Tony’d guessed throughout the years that it would be something so All American that they’d laugh - a baseball mitt or Cracker Jacks, but of course it was apple pie.

And from the looks on the face of the staff in the room, it was strong.

“Oh,” Tony breathed out. “Oh.”

Steve’s smile widened as he caught the change in Tony’s scent. “Can we possibly have a minute?”

“If his blood pressure spikes, Mr. Rogers, we’ll be in here again, but you can have a few minutes,” the OB smiled.

“Not sure we could stop you,” a nurse snorted and they made their exit quickly.

"Steve," Tony breathed out and Steve held up a hand and Tony _knew_ he needed to let Steve say whatever he'd come to say. He could tell from the way Steve shuffled his feet, but still stood with determination, by the set of Steve's jaw, and by that glorious smell. _Peter,_ he mentally addressed the boy. _I think everything might just be about to change._

“So I have a secret,” Steve said, advancing on the bed and putting the ice chips down on the side table. “I’ve wanted to bond with you since I knew what bonding was.”

Tony’s breath caught and he felt tears flood to his eyes. He opened his mouth to speak, but Steve cupped his face and all his words fled.

“I’ve been so scared to tell you, because why would you want me? You could have anyone you wanted - you’re so smart and so beautiful - I couldn’t imagine why you’d settle for the kid you grew up with. But I’m wondering if maybe I was wrong, and maybe you’d want to bring our boy into the world as bonded parents?”

Tony nodded and leaned into Steve’s hand, closing his eyes at the sensations overwhelming him. “More than anything.”

He could hear Steve’s breath catch and felt the bed shift as Steve climbed in. “I’m not sure how to do this without hurting you or Petey,” Steve said and Tony opened his eyes to see that Steve’s brow was furrowed.

“You smell like apple pie,” Tony murmured. “Why haven’t I smelled it before?”

“I was wearing blockers,” Steve confessed. “I didn’t think you wanted-”

Tony whimpered. “Well, we’re going to talk about how you’re never allowed to do that again because I want, Steven. I want so badly.”

“I think this bed might break,” Steve whispered.

“I’ll buy them six new ones, just kiss me, Alpha.”

It was the first time since their night together that Tony had said the word to Steve. He used it in his head all the time, but the last time he’d used it as Steve’s title, Steve’s knot was still inflated and they’d been tangled in each other. He remembered smelling _safetycomfortwant_ when he said it that night, and it had only served as a harsh reminder that Steve wasn’t his.

That wasn’t what he smelled this time as Steve brought his lips down to Tony’s. Instead, he smelled the aforementioned apple pie, and…

“Holy fuck,” Tony said as he pulled back.

“I mean, I knew you were special…”

“ _We_ are special, Stevealicious,” Tony countered.

There was a rumor, a myth, a legend that a truly bonded alpha/omega pair would have matching love scents. Omegas could go their whole lives without really scenting like anything specific. Their scents were more soothing and often received by betas and alphas and other omegas simply as ‘comforting’. But a truly bonded alpha/omega pair would create their own scent - one that smelled to the pair of them like hope.

“Sunshine,” Steve breathed. “We smell like sunshine.”

“Sunshine, apple pie, and... “

“Winnie’s roses,” Steve finished. “The ones that grow out back -”

“- by the tree where you hung the tire swing.”

Steve kissed Tony again and Tony lost himself for a few moments in the smells, sensations, and the fact that for the first time in about two days, he wasn’t in pain.

He wasn’t in pain.

“It works,” he marveled.

“What, sweetheart?”

“Petey just shifted, and my hips don’t hurt. Quickly, the bonding started, please, please,” Tony stretched his neck to the side and let Steve bite down on his swollen bonding gland.

About the moment that Steve’s teeth broke skin, one of the various machines attached to Tony started beeping and the room was quickly full of medical professionals once again.

“Well, gentlemen, looks like your son wants to be part of the congratulations committee,” the OB said. “Let’s have a baby.”

Steve climbed off the bed and moved to stand behind Tony, careful to keep his thumb rubbing over the fresh mark.

“Oh, you can climb in behind him, Mr. Rogers,” one of the nurses offered. “If you want to remain touching, we know that can help.”

Steve didn’t even ask Tony for permission before scrambling behind him and Tony revelled in the contact as his back touched Steve’s torso. Steve whispered straight into Tony’s ear. “You ready, my love? You ready to be family together?”

Tony started crying then and didn’t stop until Peter was placed in his arms. The first family picture that Winnie snapped on her phone - Tony didn’t even remember her coming in the room - had Peter covered in the birth membrane, Tony sweaty and blotchy, and Steve staring at both of them like the whole world was being held in his arms.

Tony made it the background on his phone immediately.

* * *

“It’s your turn,” Tony grumbled into the pillow as Peter screamed from the bassinet.

“I know, babe,” Steve groaned as he hefted himself and stumbled towards their three-month-old who only seemed to be able to communicate in blood curdling screams. “Aren’t our scents supposed to calm him?”

“I have a terrible feeling our son is going to be exceptional at everything - including not following basic biological imperatives.”

“Lucky us.”

* * *

_WhatsApp: Husbands_

_Tony: We need more apple juice._

_Steve: Okay. I’m not at that aisle yet._

_Tony: Did you get distracted by the dog toys again?_

_Tony: Steve, he’s only 14 months._

_Steve: Dogs are perfectly safe for small children, babe_

_Tony: humf_

_Steve: Just think how cute the christmas cards would be. Petey in an elf costume, propped against a puppy._

_Tony: he would look fucking adorable in an elf costume_

_Tony: i’ll think about it_

_Tony: that’s all_

_Tony: apple juice, baby orajel, and ice cream_

_Steve: he is definitely too young for ice cream_

_Tony: did you not see the baby orajel? Another one’s coming in. ice cream is for me_

_Steve: guh. I hoped we’d get a break_

_Tony: overachiever baby. Doc thinks he’ll have his full set of teeth by 2._

_Steve: great. I’ll buy a few tubes._

* * *

“Captain!”

Steve heard Tony’s roar from the bedroom and winced. “God, what did he eat this time?” He made his way to the living room to find Tony standing over their six-month-old puppy, Captain, who still had Tony’s glasses in his mouth.

“I’ll call the eye doctor,” Steve replied with a sigh. “Fifth pair this month.”

“You’ll call the obedience school, too,” Tony said without looking away from their dog.

“Yes, babe.”

* * *

“I got him, Ma,” Bucky swatted at Winnie as she tried to dislodge a sleeping Peter from Bucky’s lap.

“Are you sure, I mean-”

“Grandma,” Bucky smirked at her. “You’ve got to have your hands on this munchkin three times a week for the last two years and Pep and I only see him on weekends and stuff, so back off.”

It was said with love, but there was a slight alpha growl to his voice that let Winnie know he wasn’t teasing.

She cocked her head to one side. “You know you’re going to be a great dad, right?”

Bucky was quiet but averted his gaze.

“Oh, honey,” she sighed. “You’re worrying over nothing. I promise.”

“Well, Pep’ll be a great mom,” he acquiesced. “So she’ll be covered on that front.” He ran his hand through Peter’s hair. The boy snuffled in his sleep and burrowed further into Bucky’s lap and Winnie blinked back tears.

“All three of my boys are such idiots,” she whispered as his gaze shot back to hers. “Thank god I got Pepper out of the bunch.”

* * *

“Captain get ball,” Peter commanded, throwing the small bouncy ball as far as his two-year-old arm would let him. Captain was happy to lumber after it, stumbling over his slightly-too-large puppy feet to do so. Peter giggled happily and Steve continued to card his fingers through Tony’s hair as Tony dozed on the blanket next to them. His second pregnancy was taking a lot of Tony’s energy, and Steve was delighted to let him keep resting while Captain and Peter played nearby.

“Petey, careful,” Steve called.

“He’s fine, babe,” Tony mumbled.

“He’s running fast and -”

“He’s fine, Alpha” Tony said firmly, reaching his hand to thread his fingers through Steve’s. “You smell worried and it’s gross. Harshing my buzz.”

“Well, forgive me for harshing a buzz, Omega,” Steve rumbled happily.

“Scratch my head a little harder and I’ll consider forgiving you,” Tony replied and cracked an eye open to look at his mate.

“I love you,” Steve said softly.

“I love you,” Tony replied.

“I love us,” Steve continued, placing his hand over Tony’s swollen abdomen. They were interrupted a few seconds later by a barking Captain and Peter collapsing on top of his papa.

And if anyone had walked by, they would have smelled apple pie and sunshine. Steve and Tony could only smell hope.

* * *

**Author's Note:**

> (From Flame)
> 
> Find me on [Twitter](http://www.twitter.com/betheflame1) or [Tumblr](http://betheflame.tumblr.com) for more on these yahoos. You can also submit prompts and cajole me into writing faster - it usually works. If you're on Discord, I'm definitely there, too, and probably hanging in the [Put on the Suit Stony Server](https://discord.gg/z5WSqbS).Oh! And FestiveFerret and I have a [fandom podcast](http://www.podonthesuit.com) if you're so inclined.  
>   
> 


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